Vermont Yankee, the state’s only nuclear reactor, dominated headlines this year.
Entergy Corp., the company that runs the reactor, is plagued by financial problems, and operating the Vermont plant was an expense it could no longer afford, officials said. In late August, Entergy announced it would close the plant, ironically just days after the Louisiana corporation won a long-running court battle with the state over the right continue operating the Vernon facility for an additional 20 years.
Entergy amended its application with the Public Service Board and is now seeking a one year license to operate the plant through the end of 2014, when Vermont Yankee is slated to close.
The board held off from ruling on the relicensure case at the request of the Shumlin administration while state officials settled differences over decommissioning, the economic impact of the plant closure, hot water discharges into the Connecticut River and a generation tax.
Many of those issues were resolved when the state and Entergy reached an agreement last week that sets a decommissioning completion date of 10 to 15 years, decades sooner than required by the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s 60-year timeframe. Entergy also agreed to pay millions of dollars in payments to the state in tax revenues and in support for regional economic development efforts. In addition, the agreement settled all pending federal litigation.
The settlement is contingent on the Public Service Board approving the plant’s certificate of public good before March 31, 2014.
There are other outstanding issues that have yet to be resolved. The two parties disagree over whether Entergy’s Decommissioning Trust Fund is sufficient to support decommissioning. In addition, the state and the company do not yet have a common understanding of how the site will be restored. Entergy must file a decommissioning plan with the NRC after the plant is closed.
The state is concerned that the 42-year old merchant plant’s worsening financial foundation could compromise the operational safety of the facility in the near term and the decommissioning process over the long haul.
It is unclear what the plant will do with 530 tons of radioactive waste stored on the premises. Vermont Yankee has 3,879 fuel rod assemblies submerged in a spent fuel pool that was originally designed to hold about 350. Spent fuel rods must be kept under water to prevent them from igniting, but once they are cooled, they can be transferred into long-term cement “dry casks.” Vermont Yankee will need 58 casks in all. Right now, the facility has 13. Each cask costs about $1 million.
The agreement requires that all the spent nuclear fuel stored on site pools be placed in dry cask storage, which Gov. Peter Shumlin said could take up to seven years.
Entergy’s decision to close Vermont Yankee was the result of declining wholesale market prices and competition with natural gas. Merchant plants are investor-funded; early this year a Swiss financial services firm UBS Securities downgraded Entergy Corp.’s stock and urged investors to sell.
The downgrade came on the heels of a report by UBS Securities that found Entergy “is unlikely to generate any meaningful cash” from wholesale commodities in 2013 and 2014.
Entergy’s nuclear fleet includes the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station in Massachusetts, Vermont Yankee in Vermont, Indian Point Energy Center and the James A. Fitzpatrick Nuclear Power Plant in New York, and the Palisades Power Plant in Michigan.
Net Metering
The state’s much-vaunted renewable electricity programs will likely stall without legislative intervention early next year.
The net metering program — a policy that allows residents and businesses to lower energy bills by plugging rooftop-scale renewable energy projects into the grid — hit a snag this year.
Utilities do not have to accept applications for net-metering systems when the installed wattage of a utility’s total net metering surpasses 4 percent of its peak demand from the previous year or from 1996, whichever is greater.
Several utilities hit the 4 percent limit this year. Surpassing the cap requires authorization from the Public Service Board.
A state official, however, said while the cap is clearly defined in the law, state statute is silent on what, if any, penalties utilities should incur if they exceed the limit.
The Morrisville electric department and Vermont Electric Co-op have stopped accepting applications. In November, Hardwick Electric Department raised its cap to 6 percent after reaching the statutory cap and still continues to accept applications. The following month Washington Electric Co-op announced it will no longer accept net metering applications after the Public Service Board suspended the utility’s proposal to exceed caps by only accepting 5 kilowatt sized instillations.
Lawmakers will decide the future direction of the program during the early part of the session. Meanwhile, utilities have proposed their own solutions to the highly successful program.
Vermont Electric Co-op previously submitted a plan to the Public Service Board that would reduce incentives for the net metering program, but the Public Service Department, which represents the administration before the board, did not support the proposal.
Currently, utilities pay 20 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) to customers with renewable energy projects. In October, VEC proposed reducing the credit to 12 cents per kWh for the first 10 years and then 16 cents after 20 years in a report to the board.
Wind power curtailed
Wind power companies were dealt several setbacks this year — from the regional grid operator that curtailed power output this summer and local opposition to ridgeline projects.
Last summer ISO New England announced it has been curtailing power output from several of the state’s wind power producers to maintain grid reliability.
The CEO of ISO New England said the grid cannot fully support the state’s 21-turbine Lowell Mountain Wind Project during peak demand due to transmission line limitations. As a result, Green Mountain Power, operator of the project, compensated for the curtailments by firing up diesel and jet-fuel generators across the state.
Grid officials have repeatedly said that Green Mountain Power’s Kingdom Community Wind (KCW) project, the state’s largest 63-megawatt wind farm, is tied into a weak point in the grid.
The 10-megawatt Georgia Mountain Community Wind Project has also seen curtailments. Wind developer David Blittersdorf, the founder and CEO of AllEarth Renewables, said he would bill ISO $5,490 for a night’s lost generation.
The Shumlin administration has said the curtailments are affecting ratepayers and could hamper the state’s actualization of its goal to source 90 percent of its power from renewables by 2050.
The spat between the administration and ISO New England came as wind developers aim to build a 60-megawatt project, Seneca Mountain Wind.
The Public Service Board allowed two MET towers in Brighton, one in Ferdinand and one in Newark, to measure the wind potential for the proposed Seneca Mountain Wind project in the Northeast Kingdom despite a September 169-59 town vote to amend the town plan to oppose large-scale wind development.
The proposed project could face curtailments because it plugs into the same section of the grid as the Lowell project. Meanwhile, lawmakers are considering attempts to block more wind development.
For the past two legislative sessions, Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, has pushed for a moratorium on utility-scale wind developments. At the outset of the 2013 session, he warned that large wind projects were pushing the capacity of the northern Vermont grid.
Rep. Tony Klein, D-East Montpelier, who chairs the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee, said he does not expect to see another large-scale wind project for 10 to 15 years.
Some towns are concerned that the board’s permitting process does not include enough public input under Section 248, the state statute guiding energy generation and transmission siting procedures. The Vermont Energy Generation Siting Policy Commission’s April report recommended several revisions to the permitting process. One of the commission’s suggestions to improve transparency is to give the board a case manager, who would serve as a spokesperson for the board. A review of the state’s permitting procedure is expected this session.
The Vermont Supreme Court recently denied an appeal by six protesters convicted of trespassing at the site of Green Mountain Power’s Lowell Mountain Wind project. Commonly referred to as the “Lowell Six,” none of whom had a criminal record, were protesting the construction of KCW with permission from an adjacent property owner. The protesters crossed a no-trespass line posted by the utility. They were arrested in the December 2011 incident.
